Why Christians Should Go to College

A unique student's explanation

I was up late taking my twins to a Twins playoff game, so this will be a shorter post than usual. In fact, the ideas aren’t even mine. Earlier this week a student conveyed in a few sentences what I’ve spent thousands and thousands of words trying to explain: why Christians should go to college.

It came near the end of a colleague’s lecture on medieval philosophy. I forget exactly how he put it, but Dan wanted to sketch a contrast between the common contemporary view of education as a material transaction and that of St. Thomas Aquinas, for whom learning could only be understood in terms of worship, virtue, and blessedness.

Detail from Francisco de Zurbarán’s 17th century painting of The Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas - Wikimedia

At one point, Dan asked our students why they were in college, and a hand went up in the front of the classroom.

This young man said that he had started college years before, but wasn’t ready. He dropped out, joined the Army, and was now using his veteran’s benefits to come back to school. He explained that he now just wanted to soak up everything he could learn from every class, whether he understood what it would mean to his life or not.